Hello, everyone.
Sorry I haven't written for a while. Has it been an unusual winter, or what? Austin is not as warm as I thought it would be in the winter season, but I'm not going to complain. It's been better here than other parts of the midwest (sorry, Lora and Denny. You're in my prayers). It's finally warmed up enough for me to sightsee a bit. I haven't been able to do touristy stuff here, since I came here at the wrong time (from what I've been told). When it IS warm I'm at the hospital working, and it's gloomy cold when I'm off. However, today I had a 3 day weekend off on a cool, sunny day so I took advantage of it. I haven't found anything here that would bring me back to Austin, and not as many things to do like I did in Seattle, but there's still some things to see when March and April comes around.
I found a couple coffee shops that have live music every weekend. I like their open-mic nights the most. You get to hear from a lot of "almost famous" musicians with talent (and some with not much). I also found out that March 2 was Texas Independence Day, and they're doing a weekend celebration. Yesterday, there was a ceremony at the Capitol building (I missed it), and today was an Independence Day parade. Most of the spectators were at the area that the parade stops to perform, so I sat 2 blocks down from that area where the spectators were sparse and had a better view point. Still, there were not that many that showed up. When I heard about it earlier in the week, I asked a lot of people that live here where and when it started. Most of them didn't even know that a parade was occurring this Saturday. One of the spectators I was talking with said that there's a bigger celebration for Cinco de Mayo, than there is for Texas Independence. Wow, and this is the capitol of Texas. Anyways, I got a chance to take a lot of pics of the parade.
I went to the Capitol building as well, and got a chance to learn Texas history. Did you know that 6 countries owned Texas? France, Spain, Mexico, Texas, Confederacy, and United States. No wonder Texans are proud to be Texans. They were their own country and had their own Presidents and military for a few years, before they decided to join the US to avoid bankruptcy. It's one thing to hear history in school, but it's another thing to visit the places. I love history.
Austin downtown is a mixture of old and state-of-the-art buildings. Downtown is beautiful at night (from a distance). There's this one building called "Frost Tower" that was recently built. At night, the glass panels of the building are lit up, and it looks like the White Witch's castle in Chronicles of Narnia (I don't have a good enough camera to take a picture of it during the night). They also have a warehouse district like San Diego's downtown with different restaurants and special museums.
There's supposed to be more to see when April comes around: Bats flying at dusk, creek pools with waterfalls, Lake Travis' wildflower beds, riverboats, "South by Southwest", etc. Hopefully, I'll have more pics to share with you in April. I extended my contract here up to beginning of May to get a chance to see what Austin has to offer in April. Of course, after this assignment my next stop is St Louis, where I get to visit my sister (and family) for 3 months. I'll be in St Louis from May through mid-August. After that, I don't know if I'm going back to San Diego for the summer heat and cool ocean water, or go to Connecticut to visit my niece and her family there. That's up to God.
That's pretty much it here. I'll send you the pics as soon as I download them.
;-) lots of love,
Leona
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